Indeed, something you should try every now and then. — baker

:lol:

Coming from you, this is hilarious.

Ex-president Donald Trump has been labelled, on innumerable occasions, as a buffoon and that because he makes bad decisions - from climate denial to racism - and I find it very telling indeed that he hasn't been dubbed evil.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity — Robert J. Hanlon

Epistemic responsibility, due to its moral flavor, would mean that Donald Trump is an evil/bad person.

No one knowingly does evil. — Socrates

Fools/buffoons/idiots are generally not considered culpable for their actions, no matter how immoral.

So, are we trying to, subconsciously, absolve evil folk of their fell deeds, choosing instead to treat them as mentally retarded in some way, to some degree?

It seems that fools can get away with anything - they're deemed innocent and therefore, can't be held accountable for their deeds.

Why are Hitler, Stalin and Mao and other genocidal characters also not viewed in the same light, as morons instead of fiends? If Donald Trump is stupid, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao must be treated as vegetables, totally devoid of intelligence, right?

The Good Fool, Bad Fool Paradox

A. The 3 Poisons (Buddhism)

1. Moha (Ignorance)

2. Raga (Attachment)

3. Dvesha (Hatred)

B. Intellectual Disability

Although ancient Roman law had declared people with intellectual disability to be incapable of the deliberate intent to harm that was necessary for a person to commit a crime, during the 1920s, Western society believed they were morally degenerate. — Wikipedia

C. Innocence

Innocence is a lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence is to the lack of legal guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. In other contexts, it is a lack of experience. — Wikipedia

The Fool (ignorance) is both Good & Evil!

Epistemic responsibility: The fool is guilty if bad consequences follow from his idiotic beliefs but then he's, at the same time, innocent because he didn't know any better.

Epistemic responsibility, due to its moral flavor, would mean that Donald Trump is an evil/bad person. — TheMadFool

Isn't that obvious?

Isn't that obvious? — Olivier5

No, if you look at the news. He's painted as a comical character rather than a machaivellian rapscallion.

It has to do with the fact that they shout in public people who wear masks, have pride in not being vaccinated, risk others by not taking them into account (if you don't want to get vaccinated, fine, but keep to you and yours and leave other people alone), harass parents kids for wearing masks or being vaccinated, and on and on. — Manuel

Makes sense. It's difficult with hypothetical threats. Like with terrorism - more people are killed by fridges falling on them, but the existential threat is different so create a different response. You'll do more damage to the health system by being overweight than you will by not being vaccinated, but being overweight doesn't lead anywhere - people are nervous about what the virus might do next and so I suppose, like terrorism and fridges, have different reactions to what they see as riskier strategies.

But, as you imply, there are other reasons and other parts of the population who don't get vaccinated for other reasons. And not every reason given is silly or not rational. It has become an overtly political topic. — Manuel

I appreciate that. It doesn't seem like a very popular view here though.

One needs to be smart to be 'machaivellian'. There is no doubt in my mind that Trump is evil ,but he is also a cretin.

And he likes being a cretin, and he wallows in it. Hence I agree, in his and many other cases, that true, limitless stupidity is chosen, embraced. It is not a natural state of man to be that stupid.

One needs to be smart to be 'machaivellian'. There is no doubt in my mind that Trump is evil ,but he is also a cretin.

And he likes being a cretin, and he wallows in it. Hence I agree, in his and many other cases, that true, limitless stupidity is chosen, embraced. It is not a natural state of man to be that stupid. — Olivier5

Perhaps we aren't sure, as we should be, about good, evil, and idiocy. They seem to be entangled with each other in a conceptual cloud of confusion.

It's not only that; it's the vested interest of the average person in their accustomed prosperity, convenience and lifestyle, which means they won't vote for any government that presents plans to ameliorate global warming, if those plans involve any lessening of personal prosperity and comfort (like extra taxes or rising costs, etc).. — Janus

I think that's self-evidently true to an extent, but then again people regularly make significant sacrifices for the sake of their children's comfort (going without to pay for education, for example), so it would be quite hard to reconcile that with a purely selfish greed outweighing a known risk to one's children's future. People are not inherently greedy and selfish to the point that they'd sacrifice their children's well-being for a flashier car. These behaviours are played upon by advertisers, corporartions and media influences to get the desired outcome.

But how can you have such good reasons for selecting or dismissing evidence, if you're not actually an expert in the field? — baker

Here I'm thinking of 'good' reasons as being those experience has taught us tend toward satisfactory results. Habits of thinking. If a person saying that tobacco is safe is paid by the tobacco industry, I don't need to be an expert in lung physiology to make a 'good' decision to take what he's saying with a pinch of salt. It's a habit of thinking I've developed to assess the possible conflicts of interest in those presenting me with evidence.

Evidence of previous bias (always coming down on one side of an ambiguous dichotomy), ideological commitments (politics, academic allegiances), publication biases (shock value, issue-of-the-day)...all of these can be used heuristically to weight evidence, or reject it entirely, without needing any expertise in the field at all.

The more one assesses evidence, the greater a bank of habits one develops. That's not to say that these habits are all right by any objective measure, only that they've proven themselves useful. The layman might rely on those things listed above, someone more versed in statistical techniques might additionally recognise signs of p-hacking or a suspiciously selected stratification - but still, none of these require expertise in the field being evaluated.

No one gets up in the morning and says, "I think I'll just be wrong as hell today."

Because being wrong is not a choice, it can't be immoral. — frank

Exactly.

Believing in something without evidence is a choice, — Xtrix

It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence.

Economic growth in poorer countries is basically how most problems are solved. This will often lead to greater 'super rich' people in countries already wealthy.

Often the actual practical ways to manage certain problems is fairly counter intuitive.

It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence. — Isaac

But doesn't the problem of induction show that we all believe things without proof?

Perhaps we aren't sure, as we should be, about good, evil, and idiocy. They seem to be entangled with each other in a conceptual cloud of confusion. — TheMadFool

I think we ARE sure. It's just more convenient to ignore evil, less disturbing. More confortable to think he's just another moron than to accept the depth of moral corruption the country has sunk into.

I think we ARE sure. It's just more convenient to ignore evil, less disturbing — Olivier5

I guess so.

It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence. — Isaac

How could you possibly know that? You've checked all the beliefs in all the world?

But doesn't the problem of induction show that we all believe things without proof? — frank

Yeah. Proof and evidence being two different things here. That the sun rose yesterday is evidence that it will rise tomorrow under certain modelling assumptions. The modelling assumptions might be hard-wired in some cases (ie not developed by evidence), but they don't themselves function without inputs (real time evidence). Beliefs are just too high level a structure to develop independant of inputs.

But it was flippant response to a stupid comment. Yours was all that was required really. No one deliberately decides to get it wrong. This whole thread is just @Xtrix having another stab a creating a version of epistemology in which it's impossible for him to be wrong. Last time we had that opposing views need not be engaged with, this time it's that opposing views are actually morally required to switch allegiance. I'm opening a book on what's next if you're interested in a wager...

How could you possibly know that? You've checked all the beliefs in all the world? — Olivier5

No, you're right. I've checked quite a few, and the brains doing the believing, but I've not checked every single example. I kind of work on the principle that if I check a reasonable sample I can infer the properties of the population that sample is drawn from. But if you've a better approach...

You can't see beliefs on a CT scan. So there can't be any neurological evidence for the belief that "It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence."

Last time we had that opposing views need not be engaged with, this time it's that opposing views are actually morally required to switch allegiance. I'm opening a book on what's next if you're interested in a wager... — Isaac

Having an opposing view is the same as committing genocide

Having an opposing view is the same as blowing up the whole planet, causing time to stop, and covering the universe in feces.

Having an opposing view will unleash the zombie apocalypse.

Yep. I'm offering 4:1 on 'genocide', 8:1 on 'Armageddon' and 10:1 on the zombie apocalypse outsider.

2:1 favourite is that opposing views are actually signs of mental illness (not even a joke, we've already had that one).

1000000:1 on opposing views being neurologically impossible (as, of course, we all know that would be a ridiculous thing to say because, duh, you haven't tested all views). No one would be that stupid.

This whole discussion seems to miss the central point of bad faith. One can make honest mistakes and then when presented with a series of facts contradicting a previously held idea, change one's mind, and all that is fine. People can also decide to not pronounce themselves on some issue because they don't know enough about it, and this is also fine. The real issue is with people who are obviously, demonstrably wrong in their belief but will pretend to not even understand the counterfactuals or arguments of others, and to disbelieve or simply ignore their evidence en vrac.

These people are simply liars. They lie to themselves and to others. They decide to remain ignorant, knowing very well at some deep level that it is what they do.

When on top of it they also insist on spreading their misinformed BS day in and day out, their bad faith becomes a real problem.

And sure, everybody is in bad faith now and then about something, we're only human. But do we need then to keep harping to no end in bad faith? Measure, anyone?

Do we really need an army (or several) of prolific bad faith crusaders? No, and yet that's exactly what the Gods of the Interwebs unleashed upon us.

There's always been people like that of course, but now they have this megaphones called Facebook and Twitter and co. Some of our ancestors used to write endless memoirs to newspapers and science academies across the globe about the possibility of perpetual movement or the rationality of Pi, about the earth being flat or tobacco as a cure for cancer... Strange obsessions leading to nowhere. It made for excellent dustbin or fire material back then. But their descendents now all have a YouTube channel.

Do we not have an epistemic responsibility in life? If our actions have ripple effects, and our actions are largely an outgrowth of our beliefs, then isn't it irresponsible to believe in things that lead to harmful actions? Shouldn't we be more careful about what we believe in? — Xtrix

I would say we have a responsibility to argue in good faith, to try and understand others rather than pretend ignorance or misunderstanding, and to remain open to the evidence presented to us by others. And if we can't be bothered to read or understand said evidence (something which I do a lot), at least we should be careful to not clairon our ignorance or mistrust of said evidence day in and day out. We should rather remain silent or honestly say "I don't know and I don't care", if that's the case.

They won't tell you that on Twitter, but nobody needs to have an opinion on strictly everything.

2:1 favourite is that opposing views are actually signs of mental illness — Isaac

I remember seeing that in the DSM: Disagreementosis cum me.

Yes, but I don't see how it will be possible to bring the poorer countries to greater prosperity without diminishing the general prosperity of the richer nations; not if the aim is to ameliorate global warming, species extinctions, habitat destruction, soil destruction, pollution and over-exploitation of the oceans and so on. It seems that reduction of populations will also be necessary.

I think that's self-evidently true to an extent, but then again people regularly make significant sacrifices for the sake of their children's comfort (going without to pay for education, for example), so it would be quite hard to reconcile that with a purely selfish greed outweighing a known risk to one's children's future. People are not inherently greedy and selfish to the point that they'd sacrifice their children's well-being for a flashier car. These behaviours are played upon by advertisers, corporartions and media influences to get the desired outcome. — Isaac

It's true that people do make such sacrifices when the need is staring them in the face. People don't seem to be very good at genuinely, viscerally acknowledging threats until the reality can no longer be denied. And don't forget that the currently enjoyed prosperity, comfort, convenience, material wealth and so on of a family is such for the children of that family also.

Of course I agree that the common desires for comfort, convenience, material possessions and general prosperity are manipulated and exploited by advertisers, corporations and the media.

Believing in something without evidence is a choice, — Xtrix


It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence. — Isaac

Perhaps it is neurologically impossible to believe something without what is thought to be evidence. Different people have very different ideas about what counts as evidence. Is there a reliable standard by means of which it could be judged that some conceptions of what constitutes evidence really don't add up?

Epistemic responsibility, due to its moral flavor, would mean that Donald Trump is an evil/bad person. — TheMadFool

Yes. Although I don't like "evil," too many Christian connotations. I never thought Trump was a complete idiot -- although he is certainly a buffoon.

Believing in something without evidence is a choice,
— Xtrix

It is neurologically impossible to believe something without evidence. — Isaac

No, it isn't. It happens all the time.

Now please go on to dazzle me again with wordplay. Actually, don't - I'll save you the trouble: since what you're saying will be reduced to mere truism, I concede. In the same sense it can be argued for the opposite, as well -- but never mind.

but they don't themselves function without inputs (real time evidence). Beliefs are just too high level a structure to develop independant of inputs. — Isaac

:lol:

Called it before reading it.

"Inputs." Well done.

No one deliberately decides to get it wrong. — Isaac

Yeah, they do. All the time.

Yep. I'm offering 4:1 on 'genocide', 8:1 on 'Armageddon' and 10:1 on the zombie apocalypse outsider. — Isaac

No, just agreeing with the following:

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

— "The Ethics of Belief" (1879) W. Clifford

I would say we have a responsibility to argue in good faith, to try and understand others rather than pretend ignorance or misunderstanding, and to remain open to the evidence presented to us by others. — Olivier5

Agreed.